Before she decided to become a teacher, Hillary Mekanik was a theater major at VCU. After two years, she decided she’d rather use theater as a hobby or skill and said she sort of “fell into teaching.” Mekanik teaches fourth grade at C.C. Wells Elementary. She said her days as a theater major still come in handy when preparing lessons. “I feel very lucky to have a job that allows me to use hobbies and skills I’ve grown up with. My theater plays a big role, and it keeps me going,” she said. Mekanik said she sticks to tradition in…

As a science teacher for the last 22 years, Walter Brown has had many students, one of whom was his oldest son, Reid. “That was weird. He would call me Dad or Mr. Brown, and now he’s a [high school] senior so it’s kind of cool seeing him graduate,” Brown said. His youngest son was not interested in being one of his students, and Brown joked that he was not allowed to be in the same school with his son. Brown is currently the seventh-and-eighth-grade Center Based Gifted science teacher at Matoaca Middle School. Having decided to become a teacher…

Lori Brown has been the eighth-grade Latin teacher at Matoaca Middle School for three years and her journey to get there was not conventional. She danced when she was younger, but her injuries forced her to go to physical therapy school. A patient-caused injury then led her to back to her first love, and she was the ballet mistress at a performing arts school for 12 years. Brown’s husband was in the Navy and when they ended up living at a boys’ boarding school, she decided to take Latin with the students. Her love for the language caused her…